A consideration which doubtless chiefly influenced him in this choice was that Mrs. Whitman, being a lady of literary taste and independent means, would be likely to take an interest in the _Stylus_, the hope of establishing which he had never abandoned, and would assist him in carrying out his plans in regard to it.
Of Mrs. Whitman, at this time about forty-five years of age, I have the following account from a lady--Mrs. F. H. Kellogg--whose mother was an intimate friend and near neighbor of hers in Providence:
"She was considered very eccentric--impulsive and regardless of conventionalities. She dressed always in white, and on the coldest winter evenings, with snow on the ground, would cross over to our house in thin slippers and with nothing on her head but a thin, gauzy, white scarf. She probably thought this æsthetic--and perhaps it was. There was one thing which I must not omit to mention, because it was a part of herself--_ether_. The scent accompanied her everywhere. It was said she could not write except under its influence, but of this I do not know."
As an illustration of her impulsive ways, Mrs. Kellogg says:
"I was one evening, when a little girl, sitting on the front steps when she and her sister, Miss Powers, crossed over to our house. They went into the parlor, and I heard Mrs. Whitman ask my sister to sing for her _The Mocking Bird_. She appreciated my sister's beautiful singing, but on this occasion, while she was in the very midst of '_Listen to the Mocking Bird_,' suddenly a cloud of white rushed past me like a tornado, and I heard Mrs. Whitman's voice exclaiming excitedly, '_I have it! I have it!_' Of course, we were all astonished and could not understand it at all, until Miss Powers afterward explained it to us. It seems that the beautiful music and singing had excited in her some poetic thought or idea; and, regardless or forgetful of conventionalities, she had impulsively rushed home to put it in writing, or perhaps in poetry, before it should vanish away."
Miss Sarah Jacobs, one of Griswold's "_Female Poets_," and a friend of Mrs. Whitman, describes her as small and dark, with deep-set dreamy eyes "that looked above and beyond but never _at_ you;" quick, bird-like motions, and as being a believer in occult influences, as Poe himself professed to be. "For all the sweet, poetic fragrance of her nature, she took an interest in common things. She was wise, she was witty; and no one could be long in her presence without becoming aware of the sweet and generous sympathy of her nature."